Hmm, isn’t he supposed to be a conservative with a respect for institutions that work even if they don’t work well and a healthy suscipian of outsider experts smashing a system and imposing externally solutions that don’t have internal stakeholder buy-in.

Would love to hear more about the supposed “better future”, the invasion of Iraq offered to that country. Would Frum be okay with foreigners invading the U.S. and saying the same? I guess Frum is one of those Conservatives who just cannot admit that the invasion of Iraq was immoral and completely unnecessary — and most importantly based on lies.

Pauline Graham, Gordon Gentle’s grandmother and Rose Gentle’s mother, said: “Now we know where we stand and what we can do. Tony Blair should betaken to court for trial for murder. He can’t get away with this any more.”

Kevin Thompson, was killed in 2007

Mark Thompson, father of Kevin Thompson, who was killed in 2007, said he also blamed Blair. “He’s destroyed families. We have lost grandchildren. We have lost a daughter-in-law. He’s got everything. He should be stripped of everything he has for what he’s done. It was an illegal war. My son died in vain. He died for no reason.”

A lot of people have pointed out that the Sunni resistance got both its motive and its military capacities by the intentional action of the Bush administration to kick all the Sunnis out of the army. So, no, not the Iraqis’ choice at all.

Niall Ferguson has been running around saying the same things about India and the British Empire for a while now. He has been rewarded with a tenured named professorship at Harvard. So yes there is still a market for the propagandists of the White Man’s Burden.

Funny how I didn’t see any of that on the morning blather on CNN or MSNBC. Nope , just all Hillary emails all the time. Including some Trump spokesperson pinhead repeating that Hillary must have bribed the AG. ‘Its just so obvious!’

Those wacky Iraqis, voting with a solid majority for ethnic conflict instead of peace and prosperity! Well, since the majority voted for it, it must have been what they all wanted.

I mean, it’s not as though wars can be started by a tiny minority of selfish or misguided or sociopathic leaders. A whole region couldn’t possibly be consumed by war unless the people want it! Didn’t the voters approving WWI and WWII in advance teach us that? I learned about the August 1914 War Referendum and the September 1939 Invasion Approval in school – didn’t everyone?

The problem is that Iraqis did have a free election, and the Shia majority voted in a Shia government that proceeded to rob and kill the Sunni minority. The Iraqi people do have agency, and they(the Shia in this instance) did make that choice collectively.

Of course, the British saw all of this in action back in the 1920’s, and there was no reason to suspect it would be any different this time around.

However, if we just clap louder, western democracy will really work this time in a country and culture that has never experienced it before and is recovering from decades of brutality and sectarian hatred, right?

@Elmo: The Maliki government did everything possible to stoke Sunni hatred by abrogating every promise, instituting confiscatory policies and incidentally killing a lot of Sunnis as supposed terrorists/whatever.

It is not evident that the Shia majority were discomfited by these actions, and AQ in Iraq was easily able to take advantage of that.

@celticdragonchick: And the British were there in the 1920s to open hospitals and schools and bring civilization to the heathens, Am I right? Just like the Bushies were in Iraq to bring democracy to the Middle East.

Was just listening to Tony Blair speechifying as to why the Chilcot report is wrongWrongWRONG! It reminded me of listening to Fox and Cheney, and found myself saying “You lying motherfucker!” at his voice.

He was talking about how, post-9/11, THE WORLD WAS NOW IN DANGER FROM TERRISTS, and especially because of Saddam and Iraq. Curiously, he neglected to explain how a Sunni/Baathist dictator was going to align himself with anyone Shia, let alone Osama. And he talked about the Taliban, which I guess were a MAJOR player in Iraq while Saddam was there.

I woke up early and listened to BBC news, which had live coverage of the delivery of the Chilcot Report. Good coverage in the Guardian. Absolutely devastating with respect to Tony Blair eagerly signing on to the Bush Administration folly, when the best analysis indicated that Saddam could be contained, if any action at all were required.

So far, no mention of the report at all on CBS radio or a couple of other local news outlets.

Probably too broad a generalization, but governments created from out of an anarchic void don’t tend to function well (at least not for a while). We created that void. Admitting as much should not and does not excuse the conduct of the sunni and shia extremists within Iraq who took advantage and the various people who sought to profit from the chaos.

You know…much as I loathe and despise the Iraq invasion, and all the parties involved in making the decision…I still find myself thinking, “wow…if *this* is the reason Jeremy Corbyn wanted to hang on to power…not so he can help guide the country thru’ the cluster fuck of the Brexit vote – which, it can be argued, he helped cause by refusing to campaign vigorously for Remain…but just so that he can stick it to Tony Blair – fuck him.”

Frum is still scum. It’s good to remind ourselves of this, and he always does it every once in awhile. Pretending to be different than ‘ the rest of the GOP’ gets tiring, and sometimes, you just gotta let out that inner GOP.

Niall Ferguson has been running around saying the same things about India and the British Empire for a while now. He has been rewarded with a tenured named professorship at Harvard. So yes there is still a market for the propagandists of the White Man’s Burden.

@SFAW: I eagerly await the inevitable “Bill Clinton causes ISIS” article, probably a nice long-form somewhere pseudo-respectable, with twenty-seven 8×10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining how this is all his fault.

However, if we just clap louder, western democracy will really work this time in a country and culture that has never experienced it before and is recovering from decades of brutality and sectarian hatred, right?

The last time I checked, Japan and India were fairly successful democracies, while the US is flirting with the idea of electing the Combover Tyrant. And the West moved slowly towards democracy while simultaneously dealing with brutality and sectarian hatred.

@Brachiator: The West didn’t have it externally imposed, though that does remind me of a Vonnegut quote.

I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy—because we’re experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, is that quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay.

@schrodinger’s cat: Along with plane loads of poison gas dropped on the ungrateful locals. Churchill said the occupation of Iraq was like sitting on an ungrateful volcano and paying 8 million pounds for the privilege. Somebody should have pasted that on the bust of Churchill that W had in the oval office,

How does this contradict the fact that Japan and India, and other non Western countries, are successful democracies? Also, a case can be made that India embraced democracy and adapted it to their needs. Obviously, Iraq was a massive failure, but the idea that political movements must be entirely organic or evolve from local institutions is not proven by history.

Frum is my favorite right-wing commentator (which is like saying the smallest giant or the largest dwarf) because at least he is capable of carrying on a conversation and is not just a right-wing random phrase generator. He has also identified many of the problems with the US conservative movement, which got him fired from his cushy think tank job when he spoke them aloud. However, when it comes to foreign policy he is way over his head from the start.

@Brachiator: @schrodinger’s cat: I wasn’t particularly disagreeing either, you did state facts after all. It’s not *impossible* for an occupying American/British military to impose democracy on a foreign culture. I was just saying that modern liberal democracy in Japan is about as old as modern liberal democracy in parts of Europe.

@Major Major Major Major: British military did not impose democracy in India. It was something Indians were agitating for since the 1880s. With their hasty retreat in 1947. Legacy hire Mountbatten totally botched the partition. India could have easily become the basket case that Iraq is now, look at Pakistan if you don’t believe me. Immediately after independence, India had to deal with millions of refugees and violence that killed millions. It is the architects of Indian Independence, mainly Nehru, Patel and Dr. Ambedkar, the framer of the Indian constitution who get the credit for the Indian democracy, flaws and all.

Liberal western democracy requires certain conditions to exist and it is the height of ethnocentric hubris to suppose that every culture will be excited to be just like us!

Japan was unusual in that the government had spend decades actually trying to emulate Great Britain (particularly the navy) and had developed strong institutions that preserved rule of law and fostered trade etc.

Germany already had some experience with democracy and also had institutions that promoted rule of law. Both countries had a fairly unified consensus on how society should proceed.

Iraq (and many developing nations in the 3rd world) had none of this. Local or national strongmen took bribes or robbed the people outright, and ethnic/religious division made social consensus impossible. Rule of law simply did not exist and local hatred meant that settling scores was far more important than building a civil society.

Japan took more than 70 years to build to a point where democracy was both feasible and desirable…and this was a country with almost no ethnic division to speak of (beyond the Ainu people on the northern island).

Why the hell would anybody think it would be easier in Iraq?? Your choices are:
1. Tripartite division and let them go their way…
2. A multi-generational commitment by the UN to police, build institutions, provide education and services, and rehabilitate Iraq to the point that maybe they can live together (and still have a good chance of watching them decide to split up).

In any case, we cannot assume that our brand of democracy or our notion of human rights are what the Iraqis (of whatever ethnicity and religion) will ultimately choose to live with. We can disagree with their choices, but it will be their choice in the end.

Or see the wars of religion even as you had parliament developing in fits and starts. The rulers of Turkey have fought to establish a secular society while respecting Islam. On the other hand, colonial governments would wave the idea of democracy over the heads of locals while ruthlessly oppressing them. History is complex.

@celticdragonchick: They never wanted to ‘promote democracy’ or any of that other horseshit. They wanted to bust up Iraq so it wouldn’t be any sort of threat to Israel. That was the main reason, along with it presumably helping out Dubya’s re-election chances.

@celticdragonchick: The point I am making is that they were not passive observers, but meddling busybodies, exploiting the sectarian hatreds for their own gain. They are not quite innocent in the way the history of the Middle East has unfolded post WWI and beyond.
Blaming Iraqis alone for the current situation, which includes the rise of ISIL is BS. Bush’s invasion and the subsequent mismanagement set the stage for ISIL.

Liberal western democracy requires certain conditions to exist and it is the height of ethnocentric hubris to suppose that every culture will be excited to be just like us!

Yawn. I never said this, or anything like it. Democracy is an idea, and thinking people can understand it and adapt it. And have successfully done so. It is something worse than ethnocentric hubris to suggest that only white folks with their white folks history could have democracy, and other people can only have their own culturally appropriate forms of government.

The writer at WaMonthly put it best – just yesterday. David Frum has some reasonable ideas on where the GOP could have done better in domestic politics.
But his foreign policy ideas are unhinged. Forget those.

I’m hearing a lot of comment today about people being “above the law” even when an investigation shows they didn’t break the law. None of that “above the law” talk is being addressed to anyone in Britain. Curious, innit?

Everything that I have said here has noted that Iraq was a massive failure. That’s why I was awake at 3:30 in the morning listening live to the BBC news report which tore apart Bush and Blair’s folly. But I don’t know that the Bush Administration really cared about bringing democracy and free markets to Iraq. It seemed more a cover for Bush exacting revenge on Saddam. And Bush and Cheney seemed to have this fantasy that they could impose their will on the world with no negative repercussions.

I was not really disagreeing with you. My quip was in response to the so called defenders of the West like Sully and Frum.

Point noted. I think that the world still has much to learn about how India’s leaders created a working democracy as part of their path to Independence. Obviously, it was not perfect and is still a work in progress, but it has been more stable than not. Much can also be learned from the relative tragedy of Pakistan, which I think would disappoint Jinnah and the early leaders who wanted something better than what has been achieved there.

There is a Wilsonian messianic strain in neoconservatism that absolutely believes the American “City on a Hill” will save the benighted masses aroound the world. Just listen to some of the old interviews with Paul Wolfowitz. It is the American updated version of British paternal colonialism, but with more guns and “let the locals bootstrap their democracy like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson did!” attitude.

We can spend days…literally…pointing out the sheer folly in this mindset, but it is utterly impervious to empirical experience or reason. Over at LGM, Scott Lemieux and Rob Farley started calling it Green Lantern thinking.

@Brachiator: Jinnah was old and sick at the time of the partition. Besides the army, Pakistan did not have much of a functioning government. The army stepped in to fill the vacuum. Islam was not enough of a glue to bind the various ethnicities (Punjabis, Pathans, Baluchis, Sindhis, Bengalis etc.)
Also, the heart of the Muslim League was in UP (Uttar Pradesh) which is in India. Pathans of NWFP did not want to join Pakistan and would have been happier with a United India.

but meddling busybodies, exploiting the sectarian hatreds for their own gain.

Meddling? Oh yes indeed. The British excel at that.

As for gain, I think incompetence and ignorance played larger roles. Nobody really knew what to do with the remains of the Ottoman Empire and the Brits tended to view everything in South Asia through the lens of the Great Game with Russia which had now been stood on its head by the Revolution.

There’s an iota of truth to the second half of Frum’s statement, certainly some Iraqis are the main culprits for a continuing war. But good lord, these guys just have no ability to examine themselves. Honestly, it’s this kind of blatant assholery that partly explains the rise of Trump.

I know I’m late to this thread…so this has probably already been said…but I just can’t imaging how any human being, let alone one who was in the White House, working for Bush, and the supposed author of the phrase “axis of evil,” could possibly fucking make this kind of statement. What kind of raging dick asshole do you have to be to think that you have any justification for this assertion? It’s just…unreal…I am unable to fathom this bullshit.

Edit: actually, I take back my last sentence. Let’s just call it what it is: evil delivered via a banal Twatter mention, and it’s sickening to think that there will be no consequences for Frum for this, but there won’t be – except for Karma. We can hold out for that doing its thing.

I read somewhere that there was a group within the Bush administration that basically wanted to use Iraq as an advert for their perfect libertarian- neo liberal state so they deliberately reduced everything to Year Zero so they could rebuild it in Ayn Rand’s image. The idea was once it was complete everyone would be so impressed with this earthly paradise they would want their own society to be the same!

@LAO:
Cheney helped write a paper about it, so we know exactly what they thought was victory. A show of American military strength would easily force Iraq to become a democracy. They would be so grateful, and the country would so flourish, that all the other nations in the Middle East would beg us to do the same. We would become the idols of the world, and the liberated peoples would do anything we asked out of love for our superiority.

Just because the logic is delusional doesn’t mean the neocons aren’t sincere.

@Sloane Ranger:
Yes, and Cheney was the head of that group. Sure they were corrupt, but they also honestly believed their insane dogma.

I have a friend from Hyderabad who’s been in the US since the mid-70s. He has quite positive things to say about the effects of the British occupation and the infrastructure and institutions that remain. He’s from a very wealthy family, and I believe his parents died when he was pretty young. Most of the kids and cousins are here and have been for a long while.

Mr. Q laughed and laughed when I asked a question about Portuguese folks and we got into an elaborate discussion of arcane history and geography, complete with Swamy drawing a map on an unfolded cocktail napkin to illustrate trade routes and strategic decisions. All I was really trying to get was some information about Dinesh D’Souza’s family origins. But it was a very interesting chat.

@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): The Indians who manned the administrative layer just one level beneath the top British administrators did pretty well under the British rule. Both my grandfathers worked for Mumbai Port Trust (Port Authority). One was in a Medical Reserve unit during WWII. That generation remembers the British with fondness.
The great transfer of wealth from India to Britain, the countless famines under the British rule pushed India to the third world status from its earlier riches. So in short, yes a section of Indians made out well, but not the vast majority.
Dinesh D’souza is a Goan. The Portuguese originally had Mumbai and its surrounding areas too. Bajirao I’s brother defeated the Portuguese in the Battle of Vasai and they could not make any further forays on the west coast. The last Peshwa was defeated in 1818 by the British governor of Mumbai, Elphinstone.

@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): There were many Goan Brahmins and other upper caste people who converted to Catholicism. Portuguese were fanatical religious zealots. The British were low key about religious matters and did not try to mess with the religious practices, especially after the 1857 uprising.

Never underestimate the human capacity for self delusion. The GOP neo-cons bought their own press. Hook, line and sinker. It was part of their Ronald Reagan CITY ON A HILL MUTHAFUCKAS!!!! myth and it is foundational to the Zombie Reagan delusion that still grips the GOP.

Enter random country, blow up the bad shit and install Ayn Rand/Austrian School economics along with good ol’ American boot strapping self reliance and all good things will come…

So in my way, I am cynical enough to believe that they are actually that delusional.